just a week ago, i pulled out my al pacino - joseph fiennes - jeremy irons version of merchant of venice and watched some of it. then a few days later, i pulled out our rehearsal of our version which i had shot with vasuki teacher's camcorder. it was interesting to compare and contrast. ours of course was a straightforward exposition of shakespeare's text, and the movie is of course very well put together and all that, what with the great actors and all their subtleties and nuances.
it was interesting: the movie had rich sets, full of ambience, and multimillion dollar budget to do all sorts of things. ours was essentially a garage production. wouldnt it be a challenge to review this play for ourselves and do it all over again. how would you guys do it different. i wonder...
and then, in the last week or so, hallmark had put up modern adaptations of macbeth, much ado about nothing, taming of the shrew, and a midsummer night's dream. i caught macbeth - all set in a swank restaurant, with the protagonist trying to rule the roost as the restaurant becomes more and more famous - and then just yesterday, i saw the dream. these were interesting adaptations. i wonder if anyone of you has seen these. hope to catch the other two adaptations when they start playing the movies more regularly.
the dream had overtones of love and peace, hate and war - hinting at parallels with the world condition... the microcosm reflecting the macrocosm.
